Month: March 2016

On top of work and all the people coming and going through the office, and then getting home and doing housework-as if that’s not enough-today I had jury duty. Thankfully, I wasn’t selected, but it was still an annoyance.

It was a federal court case, at a federal courthouse that was an hour and fifteen minutes from my home. Had to be there at 9 a.m., found out I wasn’t selected at 12:15 p.m., then I had to go home to get my stuff for work, then drive to work. I got there at 3:05 p.m., and I leave at 5 p.m. It just hasn’t been my day. Needless to say I go no reading or writing done today.

But I did get some writing done over the weekend. Nothing new, I just managed to transfer three (I think) of my seven scenes from my notebook into Scrivener. The total word count on my computer is officially 3,080. My current scene count is 54. I don’t think it’s too shabby. It would probably help if I actually wrote in order, though, but I’m a hopelessly scattered person, so I’m not going to get my hopes up on the chance that I’ll get organized. My method works for now. I have a five-subject notebook. Each subject starts off with a table of contents, I number all the pages, and that helps me keep track of what I’ve written. When I finish a subject, I put it on my computer.

I do wish that I had a scanner that could copy the words from my notebook instead of me typing them in. I’m one of those that constantly edits. I’ll erase a whole sentence just because I mistyped the word “the” at the beginning. I also have the handwriting of a serial killer, or so I’m told by my mother. I promise I’m not, but I think the universe wanted me to be a doctor, what with my horrendous chicken-scratch.

Either way, tonight, I write. (Hehe, that rhymed. I’m know, I know. Go ahead, roll your eyes. I know you want to.) I want to finish the scene I’ve started and maybe add another to my computer. I’ll let y’all know how it goes!

Well, I’m slowly, but surely working on my WIP (work-in-progress, if you don’t know what that means). I started on this story during NaNoWriMo 2015. I got through it, finished the month…and then decided that I wanted to change what happened in most of the story.

Document trashed.

Well, not really. I moved it to another folder so that I couldn’t see it anymore. I still look at it from time to time to see if there’s anything I need to pull from it to supplement what I’ve rewritten.

I also decided to write a little differently this time. I got a five-subject, college-ruled notebook, and whatever I write goes into it. I’ve written seven of the fifty-four scenes that are going into my story. I’m working on number eight at the moment, but I’m also trying to make up a more detailed outline. This would be easier if I wrote things in order, but that’s neither here nor there.

I’m going to keep working on my outline, and my scene, and maybe I’ll have both done by the end of the day!

I had a small stockpile of books filling up my desk at work, so Friday I loaded them all into a bag and took them home. I had planned to put them all on my book shelves, but that didn’t happen. So now, all but one of my books are sitting in the bag, on the floor, in my room.

The one book I have with me today is Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I’ve been reading it for about a month now. I got halfway through and hit a gigantic reading slump.

In my defense, that book is massive and the print is tiny.

I really do like the story, though. It’s a bit slow, but that’s my doing. I have a friend that I’ve known since I was in elementary school (she wasn’t in school with me, her kids were), and she’s originally from Scotland. I’m imagining all the characters with her accent.

Either way, I really like Outlander, and I’ve got the next two books in the series, so maybe I’ll have those three read by the end of the year.

And hopefully I’ll remember to pick up Before He Finds Her to bring with me tomorrow.

I ended up getting more books than I was going to, but I just had to have them.

On my currently reading shelf, I have Before He Finds Her by Michael Kardos. He teaches at the college that I just graduated from, although I never got the chance to take any of his classes myself. Now, I wish I had.

I’m only about thirty pages in so far, but it’s definitely caught my attention so far.

Although as of right now, “everyone” is referring to no one. Hopefully, that will change.

I’m here, as of today, for books-reading them, writing them, and whatever else that can be done to books.

I’ve always loved writing-ever since I was in high school and stole my classmates names to put into my stories. Stories that have never seen the light of day, thank goodness. I’d always just messed around with the idea of writing. There were books that were so amazing that no one could do anything to make them any better than they already were. There were also books that made me think, “I so could’ve written that better than they did.” And that made me think.

Why don’t I write something better than they did?

I tried, and failed. Notebooks and computer folders filled with stories, but I didn’t really like any of them. They were too overdramatic, too mushy, too something.

Then, I got busy, as in my life got busy and I didn’t have time outside of college to do anything other than read and write for my classes. Oh, if I could redo the last few years!

But now I’ve graduated. I’ve got a full-time job (which I’m at right now). I don’t have as much free time as I’d like to have, but it’s more than I’ve had in a long time. I go to work, I go home, and I don’t have to think about work again until I walk back in that door. There’s no carry-over. I’m not reading this book or that essay for a class, I’m not writing an essay for a professor.

This past May was the first time in years that I’d gotten to read a book, read it because I wanted to read it. No analysis unless I wanted to, no essay, no presentation, no speech. Just reading.

And I loved it.

I read about Katniss, and Tris, and Thomas, and…I realized that I hadn’t written in as long as I hadn’t read.

So…I’m reading and I’m writing.

I’d like to use this page to talk about what I’m doing with both-which books I’ve read and why I like them, what’s going on in my stories, and things like that. If any of you would like to talk share that too, I’d welcome it!